Last night, we watched the 60 Minutes piece on the Gambino boy (such a nice, clean, articulate young man! It's a shame those people got in the way of his bullets!) and then the follow-up 60 Minutes extra segment on Afghanistan. It was a real eye-opener.
Back in 2007, when I used to travel a lot and had to watch Airport CNN because I couldn't escape it, I found an eerie connection between CNN and Lord Haw Haw, the British citizen who voluntarily worked for the Nazis doing propaganda broadcasts.
He would interview Allied POWs, give lists of dead Americans and report the nightly count of Allied bombers shot down. Of course, he worked for the fascists, but then again, a good argument could be made that Wolf Blitzer does the same. This site has a collection of archived broadcasts from Lord Haw Haw. It's chilling to listen to them and then watch CNN.Last night's 60 Minutes bit on Afghanistan was the full Lord Haw Haw. It started with war dead, then followed a bomb removal crew as it trundled along some Afghan roads, focused primarily on the bombs they didn't find and the times when the bomb detection trucks themselves were blown up and then the segment closed with interviews of the soldiers where the only thing discussed was whether the mission in Afghanistan could succeed.
The answer from the soldiers as told to you by the CBS editors who picked which raw video material would make it onto the show: the mission can succeed only if you define success as coming home. In a war where the only way to win it is to outlast your enemy, having the press on the other side is fatal. When your own press is telling you how many B-17s the Luftwaffe shot down, how the bombing raids missed their targets and talking to POWs in Germany who want their families to know they're being well-treated and they just want to come home, you're totally screwed.
In another dispiriting development relative to Afghanistan, Der Spiegel is reporting that as soon as Obama announced that we had a time limit on the Afghan surge, our European allies, never the steadiest bunch, all started edging towards the door. Now they're ready to bolt.
When Washington starts withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, its NATO allies in Europe will quickly rush to the exits. A power-sharing arrangement between Kabul and the Taliban is a less than ideal solution, but it is the only realistic option if the West pulls out.Given a resolute president like George W. Bush, these developments could be weathered. Given one that flounders in the face of something as relatively straightforward as cleaning up an oil spill, these would seem to doom us in Afghanistan. Until last night, I was an optimist about the Afghan campaign. Now, not so much.
No matter how many times President Barack Obama and his senior officials tell the world that the Americans will not be pulling out of Afghanistan in just 13 months time, most Afghans believe that the US endgame is already well under way. The same is true for governments of neighboring countries known for their interference and influence-seeking in the Hindu Kush.
6 comments:
I'd given up on 60 minutes years ago. We'd tried watching it again this year, but really couldn't stomach it. Its demographic is getting older and older each year and the reporting reflects that.
But as for the waffling on the oil spill. How can you waffle on something when only the oil companies have the knowledge, the skill, and equipment to deal with it. Really the only thing that could have been done differently is to pull BP out of it completely and bring in Shell or the Norwegians. And that is assuming that they'd agree to help. The number of parties with deep sea drilling experience is extremely small.
Something you don't hear much in the media is that BP's approach to deep sea drilling cuts a lot of corners compared to the top players. My friends in the industry have commented about BP's arrogance. BP's safety record reflects the repercussions of such choices. Unfortunately so does their profits. It pays to take chances when your liability is capped.
You're quite right. They shouldn't be broadcasting things that give comfort to terrorists and demoralise prospective recruits into the occupation forces.
Surely they've heard that the first casualty of war is truth? CNN should have killed it off and buried it long ago.
Speaking of which, you were, no doubt inadvertently, doing the islamofascists job for them in one part of your article by telling them our strategy, i.e. to out last them. Some of the silly muppets think that just because they've outlasted every invading army since Alexander The Great that they can somehow to that for eternity.
Obviously they don't, at this stage, realise that every invading army for the last 2,300 years has actually been working as part of our master plan for the good old USA to have dominion over the whole world. If you could prevent them from finding this out, I'd appreciate it.
Lose lips sink ships.
Oops. Damn, did it myself.
That shouldn't have been "occupation forces". It should have said "ranks of the Freedom bringing liberators"
The walls have ears.
Kelly, I was in agreement up to a week or two ago. I thought it was all a lot of political cheap shots. However, to use just one example of dithering on the part of the White House, Louisiana has been begging to build barrier islands for the past several weeks. As I understand it, they need approval from the Army Corps of Engineers and one of the environmental agencies. They've gotten no reply at all. That's just incompetence and it goes to the top.
We elected a total novice.
Aon, I can understand the point of view of those who want to bail out, but consider this: the enemy's strategic plan is to simply wait us out. If we give in to that, then they will see this as a victory, no matter how many lives it cost them.
That was the strategic thinking behind 9-11. When Clinton bailed out of Somalia, AQ decided they could always win since they can wait us out forever. They attacked based on that analysis. If you give in to them and leave, then you have proven them right and they'll act accordingly.
Aon, as to your second comment, just to take a single example, to the little girls who are now allowed to go to school in Afghanistan, we are indeed "ranks of the Freedom bringing liberators."
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